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The Legend of Aryxiar the Wyrm Slayer
by T.A. Saunders ©2010 v1.1 The tale of Aryxiar really begins with his mother and father. It was known by the Old Gods that if Tashalasheeri and the Champion, Hazaad were ever to produce a Dracothar offspring that it would be born with the power to slay gods and in effect, end worlds. It is the very reason Zorah and Kaal forbade Dragon and Rider to sire offspring and made Dragon and Asyndi incapable of producing offspring together under normal circumstances. What they did not count on was the determination and will of Tashalasheeri to teach herself to shapeshift, thus creating the doom for ages to come. Even when Aryxiar was young, it was evident that his father’s arrogance and his mother’s fury had forged within him a hateful spirit that had no respect for the weak and had no joy save for the sound of fear in those who addressed him. Tasha, in her own blind hate for the Old Gods filled Aryxiar with her knowledge of magic, disciplines and combat. She mingled her love for her child with the hate for the heavens above her, serving only to solidify Aryxiar’s own malice towards all life. The hate she taught him took a life of its own and grew to encompass all life, especially those who had the power to destroy him…including his own mother. Aryxiar came to discover that only the eldest ten remaining Astral Wyrms of the First Clutch, his mother and the Old Gods themselves had the power necessary to destroy him. All other beings, including the mighty Asyndi were powerless to breach his opalescent scales with spell or blade. This knowledge Aryxiar kept with him in silent trust as his mother continued to teach him. When it came time for Tasha to enter the Slumber, she instructed him to seek out the Elder Ten of the First Clutch and let them know that upon her waking, the war against the Heavens would begin. Aryxiar however had other plans for the time his mother slept. While the other Elders Astral Wyrms of the First Clutch did not know where their spiritual leader was, she knew where they had gone and gave Aryxiar the knowledge to find them and the magic to reveal their hiding places. As bade, Aryxiar sought them out, but rather than waking them as his mother wished, he murdered them in their sleep. Each Astral Wyrm of the First Clutch he slew, he ate the heart of, drank their blood and skinned their pelts from their destroyed corpses so he might wear their scales as a trophy cloak for his conquest. By the time he had found each one of these elder Dragons many decades had passed; Aryxiar was confident enough that his own mother would be deep enough in her slumber that her own death would be as easy as the other ten dragons. Tashalasheeri had awakened early however, disturbed by the shunting of the spiritual connection she shared with the other Wyrms of the First Clutch and in her dreams, the spirits of the Ten warned her that her own son was coming to bring to her the same fate he brought for them. So, Tasha with her heart weary and broken again, lay in wait for her son to return to her slumbering cave where she would pretend to be sleeping. After many days and nights, Aryxiar finally came with the bloodied spear he had used to slay the other ten Wyrms and raised it to pierce his own mother’s neck in what would have been a mortal wound, had she not surprised Aryxiar with a trap. Turning her head, just as he raised his bloodied spear, Tasha unleashed her Frostfire Breath Weapon upon him and mingled it with forgotten Draconic Magic that encased him a block of scintillating ice. Weeping, Tashalasheeri spent ten days and ten nights etching Runes of Binding and Runes of Stasis into the ensorcelled ice, to ensure that Aryxiar would be imprisoned for all Time. While she could not bring herself to slay her own son, who stood before her, locked in his treacherous position she could imprison him to ensure that he would never slaughter another of her kin again. Once her labor was completed, she took the frozen prison to the Lands of the North and buried it deep beneath the snow and the cold, hard ground. So deep it is said, that the roots of the oldest trees on Imarel, could not touch Aryxiar to give him any hope of freedom. Here, the Astral Dracothar would slowly slip into torpor and eventually, slip from the memory of Dragon and Asyndi alike. For eons untold, Aryxiar remained imprisoned, undisturbed and out of the matters of mortals. This forgotten nightmare would find realization once more for both the mother and the abomination-child, with the tampering of the guild of necromancers known as the Kiris Miran. On the behest of the exiled vampire queen Aryiseema, they sought the frozen prison, despite the warning given by Tashalasheeri herself, upon the death of Thanaxiscar, the Dragon Emperor. The warning unheeded, Aryxiar was freed from his capture and slaughtered the very necromancers that freed him, save one that escaped with a vial of his potent, ancient blood. Aryxiar’s expectant return would not see fruition however, thanks to the legendary Enforcers of Anthalas, who defeated Aryxiar while he was still weak enough for mortals to confront successfully. With his death came a measure of peace to Tashalasheeri, that her tormented son would now be in the company of his father, the heroic Hazaad, the Champion.